Back from the dead...

Sorry I haven't been updating. I've mostly been keeping up with my tumblr, which is thatgreekvegan.tumblr.com. But the url is changing constantly, haha. It's somewhat of a food blog, but to be honest its more of an 'everything' blog. Some of my photography is on it, as well as other random posts. It's not a replacement for this blog, by any means.
I want to keep this blog up, because it's a lot of fun. But I've lost some motivation with cooking. I rarely  bake anymore, but I assure you I'll be posting here sometimes. One of my favorite meals I've been having is roasted chickpeas with tomato sauce and spinach with garlic. It's super yummy :)

                                                                 

Well I have some bread to tend to upstairs...So bye for now. I'll post more, promise :)

Remember when...

I have a big post coming with tons of pictures and recipes, but I don't have time to upload them all tonight :(

But instead, I spent time today foraging through my computer, and I found some food pics that I have never uploaded before onto my blog. In fact, these were pictures before my blogging days! (shocking!) Enjoy!

(This was the failed matzoh ball soup...you can see why I didn't post it...)

Soon will be recent pictures :D Hope you liked the oldies.

Tonights production

Threw together some dinner with veggies playing the star role, with supporting roles played by tofutti cream cheese and cilantro.

Super yum! Had a little square of dark chocolate afterwards. For some reason I got SUPER full after just a few bites of this yummy dinner, but my tummy has settled down a little bit. It was still good though!

I made a "risotto" with wheatberries cooked in vegetable broth, bulgur, brown rice from the freezer, and some steel cut oats. To that I added some fresh stewed tomatoes that I pulsed with some herbs and olive oil, cilantro, celery, and tofutti cream cheese! That made it UBER creamy. Also a little salt and pepper, cayenne, and earth balance.

I sauteed eggplant with salt, olive oil, summer squash, shallots, celery, carrots, basil, and cilantro. I topped it with my new favorite topping, vegan parmesan! This was yummy, and theres a lot of leftover grain risotto in the fridge.

I really want to get some glass Ball jars to store oats, cereal, flours, and baking needs in! My parents do not understand the method. I think it'll make our cupboard pretty, and neat. Does anyone else do this?

Question of the post: What orginazation methods do you have in your cupboard or fridge, if any?

Good night guys, talk to you tomorrow! I'll be volunteering at a kitchen, more about that tomorrow. And it's not SELMA. :D

Reviews...and a BATH?!?

There are a few foods that I want to talk about, that I've bought recently. For as long as I've been a vegan, I've never really tried a vegan cheese. The other day at Hillers my dad came across this cheese. It's like a parmesan imitation, The Vegetarian Express. It's local, and made in Michigan, so I decided to give it a try.

The ingredients are pretty innocent: blanched almond meal, nutritional yeast, sea salt, dehydrated onion, and citric acid.

I personally like the taste! It does have a parmesan flavor, and my dad reccomended using it in pesto which sounded good. I was thinking of sauteing up an eggplant and some other veggies tonight, so I'll try it sprinkled on that. Overall, thumbs up on the parmesan stuff!

At whole foods, I thought of trying another kind of cheese. I had never tried a toffuti product in my life, which even I'm surprised at! I guess something that I think about is that I gave up dairy for ethical and health reasons, but I got used to not having it and I didn't really seek out the milk/cheese taste after a while. You may notice that I don't eat too much meat imitations, like tofurkey or fak-in, and I think it's because my body doesn't want that taste anymore. I feel like I don't really need it, I may have it only a few times a year! I would say the most veganized product I have is almond milk, and soymilk. Other than that, my foods are normal. I eat hummus, beans, bread products, veggies, fruit, and foods that anyone would eat. I just don't see the reason to immediatley replace the meat with a meat taste. That may be just me!!

But it's cool to experiment with different veganized versions of meat and dairy. I bought this toffuti cream cheese today, which wasn't too expensive. Thank you, Whole Foods!

The texture was very cream cheesey, and it spread well. I assume it would be a good cream cheese replacement in baking.

The taste was surprisingly good! Actual cream cheesey, and even though I havent had real cream cheese in over a year, I think it is very much like the real thing. I mixed a little with some TJ's pumpkin butter, and put it on a wasa cracker. I also tried it mixed with some local strawberry jam on a cracker. Yes, a bite made it into my mouth before the picture was taken! Oops!

Yumzo. This would also be good on toast or a bagel. :)

Gazpacho talk! I promised I would post about the gazpacho I made the other day. I based it on a recipe out of Fresh and Fast Vegan Pleasures, but changed 2 or 3 things. Mine was definetley a lot spicier, and I added a little bread crumbs beause I never got around to making the spicy paprika croutons. (Didn't want to turn on the oven!)

Spicy gazpacho soup

2 lbs ripe cherry tomatoes (I used an assortment from our garden-we had/have a ton!)

1 cucumber, peeled and seeded

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 red chili pepper, finely diced

3 spring onions (I used 1/4 red onion and 1 shallot)

3 tbsp olive oil

scant 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs (optional)

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tsp sugar

small handful arugula (I used parsley)

1 tsp sea salt

Put all the soup ingredients in the food processor, no need to seed the tomatoes!! Process to the desired consistency, Mine still had some chunks. You may heat the soup if you want like the recipe in the book says, but I have been having mine cooled.

This was great with some franks hot sauce, some more fresh cucumber, and black pepper. Perfect for a hot day, and super easy! Great way to use up tomatoes erupting in your garden.

Once a year, we give my cat, Bourbon, a bath. Since he's an outdoor cat, we figure it's good to because we don't know what he gets into out there! (Yuck...) Cats do naturally clean themselves, and he does a great job doing so. In the past years we've given Bourbon a bath outside with a hose, but every time he has broken free afterwards and gotten dirty outside. So this year I gave him a bath inside, in our bathroom! Just wet him down, with a little mild baby soap, rinsed, and dried! He was so upset during the bath, I bet the thoughts going through his head were "how could you betray me? You sick people!!!" But my mom and I tried to use quiet voices, and he actually didn't do too bad. He's currently stretched out on the upstairs couch, and is QUITE soft and pretty.

Like his white tummy? :D

I'm going to finish up reading more blogs, while I make myself chug this water sitting in front of me. See you guys later!! Thanks for stopping by.

4th of July weekend-and stuff

I've been busy lately! Well, the weekend. I spent 5 hours this morning on the computer, eating banana soft serve, and dancing to lady gaga. So that was a lie.

On sunday, I ran my first 5K!!! I was with my sister Fiona, (right), me, my sister Kate (left of me) and my dad (far left). It was so exciting! I ran the whole way, and placed 16th in my age group. My time was 29:53.

I'm the one with the funny looking legs...

I've really been into this banana soft serve. All you do, literally, is slice bananas, freeze them, then put them in the food processor for a few minutes. They actually turn to the consistency of ice cream, soft serve! I flavor mine with a splash of vanilla. I'm working on other flavors too-I made chocolate peanut butter by putting a few teaspoons of cocoa powder, a tablespoon of creamy peanut butter, and a squeeze of agave/maple blend. It's so yummy! The plain soft serve makes a great breakfast with some berries and nuts thrown on top. It's really all I want in this 90+ weather. I am staying away from hot food completely!! I'll have pictures tomorrow for that-I am making another batch then.

For fourth of july, I made very traditional tofu and rice!! Haha...not. I made BBQ (hey, that's fourth of july!) pomegranete tofu. YUMMY! It was homemade bbq sauce, and the tofu was baked to perfection. This was from VwaV. On the side, I made coconut rice with toasted coconut. This was amazing! I don't remember the last time I had jasmine rice, and this fulfilled my desire to have it. For the rest of my meal, my dad grilled asparagus, some fish, chicken, and there was always the standby hummus and carrots to munch on before dinner. And most importantly...chocolate peanut butter cups!! The recipe is in my blogroll, so look there. The post is literally called chocolate peanut butter cups.

BBQ pomegranete tofu

1 lb tofu, drained and pressed, sliced into eighths

2 T peanut oil

1 T soy sauce

BBQ sauce:

1 T peanut oil

1 cup shallots, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon chineese five spice powder

2 cups vegetable broth

a few dashes black pepper

1 6 oz can tomato paste

2 T creamy peanut butter

2 T pomegranete molasses (what the heck?! I used molasses. Sorry Isa! Not going to go foraging for pom. molasses!)

2 T soy sauce

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1 tsp hot sauce (or more as you like)

1 tsp liquid smoke

Garnish:

1/2 cup fresh pomegranete seeds

Preheat oven to 350. In a 9x18 (preferably glass or ceramic) baking pan, dredge the tofu in peanut oil and tamari to coat on both sides. Bake for 15 minutes, then flip the slices and bake for 15 minutes more.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.In a saucepan over medium heat, sauté the shallots in 1 tablespoon peanut oil for about 5 minutes, add garlic and five spice powder, sauté 1 minute more. Add veggie broth and bring to a simmer. Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the pomegranate seeds) and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently.

At this point your tofu should be baked. Pour the sauce over the tofu, covering all over. Return to oven and bake 15 minutes more. Remove from oven. Garnish with pomegranete seeds.

And this beautiful dish needed some coconut rice, so heres that.

2 cups jasmine rice, washed

1 can (13.5 oz.) coconut milk

1 cup water

a cinnamon stick

1/4 tsp salt

finely grated zest of 1 lime

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Add rice, milk, water salt and cinnamon stick to a sauce pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover pot and simmer 20 minutes. Add lime zest and stir with a fork. Remove from heat, cover and let sit 10 more minutes. Meanwhile prepare the shredded coconut.Heat a skillet over low-medium heat. Add the coconut and toast, turning frequently, for about 3 minutes, or until coconut is brown and toasty.Remove the cinnamon stick from the rice and serve, sprinkling the toasted coconut over each serving.

Yeah, I took that picture.

This was so good! at one point, I think the BBQ sauce made its way over to the rice, and it all merged. Still yummy.

The PB cups were a disaster!!

Tricked ya. They rock. Only 1.5 left in the freezer:( Good excuse to make more?

I have been thirsty lately (yes, for blood...) because of this crazay weather. I made the Peach and Mint iced tea from The Kind Diet. This was so refreshing! Gotta give this a try.

4-6 Kukicha or green tea teabags

4 ripe peaches, cut into 1/4" pieces

1 small bunch fresh mint

maple syrup to taste

Bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Place the teabags in a heatproof pitcher. Add the water to the pitcher, and steep for 10 minutes. Remove the teabags and allow the tea to cool.

When cool, add the peaches, mint, maple syrup, ice, and serve. Yum!!

I am not really sure whether to EAT the peaches, or if it's just to flavor the tea...I ate them. It would be such a waste to throw away perfectly good Georgia peaches, right?

Tonight, a spur of the moment thing, I made summertime succotash from the kind diet. This was yummy! Quick too. Didn't have to cook much. It's a lot better cooled, but still good piping hot.

1 tablespoon Earth Balance butter
1 teaspoon Olive oil
1 cup Diced red onion
1 Garlic clove, minced
1 (10-ounce) package Frozen baby lima beans, thawed (see Note)
1 cup Fresh or frozen corn
1 cup Cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons Chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons Chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon White or red balsamic vinegar

Heat the butter and oil together in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, and saute' for 5-7 minutes or until the onion begins to brown. Add the garlic, and cook 1 minute longer.
Stir in the lima beans, ans saute' for 5 minutes. Add the corn and tomatoes and saute' for 1 minute or longer or until just heated through. You don't wait the tomatoes to collapse and release their juices. Remove from the heat, and stir in the parsley, basil and vinegar. Serve warm or chilled.

That's all for now...Maybe more cooking soon, but right now I have no interest in going upstairs where I think I will be baked into cookies the second I walk in. (oven-bake-me? Oh whatever.) Did I mention we don't have air conditioning?

Leftovers?

What do you think? Do you like leftovers?

For me, it depends. If I have a really good recipe in mind, but know that I have to use stuff up, I'm dissapointed. But if I'm hungry and want something quick that I know I put a lot of effort into, its great.

Dinner tonight was leftover wheatberry black bean corn salad. I sauteed red onion and carrots, plus fresh herbs from our garden. I'll admit, I went crazy! I chopped basil, cilantro, parsley and mint. Surprisingly good! I drizzled it with valencia hot sauce, less than 1/4 of an avocado, (the rest was brown! :( ) and a tiny drizzle of brown rice syrup. Don't hate it until you try it.
I ate outside today! First day this year. So pretty.

My cat Bourbon came outside after a while, and I managed to snap a cute picture of him. Yay!
Wer'e growing SO MUCH! I'm going to show you the herb department tonight. We have:
Italian parsley

So much mint I'm gonna cry.

Thyme. ( I was gonna make a pun for this, but figured it would be pathetic.)

Sweet basil (My favorite herb!)
'Lil basil plant! I can't believe you started out just as a sprout...

I went to whole foods on my bike to pick up ingredients to test out my tempeh bacon.
It's marinating away in the fridge right now. Who knows how it'll turn out?! Scared. But gonna see tomorrow morning whether it is worthy to serve to customers. Night!

Lots to talk about

WELL here I am again finally. If this picture thing works out! My dad had to fiddle with the computer for a while, and I think it's working now. Pretty exciting.
I LOOVE my new camera. It's perfect for food photography, and flowers especially. I discovered it had a black and white, sepia, and other features, plus the ZOOM that I am in love with.

FOR THE FOOD

I have been baking plenty...lets just say that! For the end of the school year parties, I was the one bringing tons of goodies. For a science party (yeah, I know) I made chocolate chip cookies from VwaV. These were yummy, with a very wet batter.

1 cup earth balance

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 T molasses

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350'F. Cream the EBB and sugar until fluffy. Add the molasses and vanilla. Then add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon fulls on to a greased baking sheet . Bake for 8-10 minutes, golden brownish. Let cool for 5 minutes, if you can.

For a choir party, I made Crispy peanut butter treats with chocolate chips from The Kind Diet. People actually liked them! (And so did I...) I wasn't sure because after all they had brown rice syrup, and you know how people are about weird foods.

Makes 9-12 Squares

1 box brown rice crisps cereal

1 3/4 cups brown rice syrup

3/4 cup unsalted peanut butter

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Pour rice cereal into a large bowl. Heat the syrup with a pinch of salt in a saucepan over low heat. When the rice syrup liquefies, add the peanut butter and stir until well combined. Pour over the rice cereal. Mix well with a wooden spoon.Once thoroughly mixed and cooled to room temperature, stir in the chocolate chips. Make sure the mixture is cool, or you will end up with melted chocolate instead of chocolate chips in your treats.Turn the mixture out into an 8x8” or 9x13’” baking dish. Wet your wooden spoon lightly and press the mixture evenly into the pan. Let cool for 1 hour -- if you can -- before cutting into squares or bars.

But I was wrong! These were a hit. Also to that party I brought a veggie tray the size of me, pita chips, and a hummus quartet. Yum!

My amazing Latin teacher was retiring this year, and had a retirement party the day we left for our trip. I brought Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies, which vanished quickly. These could have been more rich, but as my mom described them, "They would be good with afternoon tea." Yup. But still, I vote for more chocolate!

1 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c cocoa

1/4 t salt

1/4 t baking soda

1/2 c canola oil

1/3 c almond milk

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t almond extract

2/3 c sugar

6 t jam

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together flour, cocoa, salt and baking soda.
In a large bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients (not the jam) plus the sugar. Add the dry to the wet and incorporate well.
Roll 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball and press into a disc, place on cookie sheet. Bake cookies for 5 minutes and remove from oven. Press your thumb into each cookie to make an indent and then fill with 1/4 teaspoon of jam into each indentation. Bake for another 6 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 2 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool.

We (as in graduating class from 8th grade) went on a trip to Washington, D.C. This was interesting! Very educational, long bus rides, lots of sleeping and listening to John Mayer. (!!) I took over 300 pictures, it was very cool. We also went to Gettysburg.

On the bus, about to go CrAzY :0

In Gettysburg...friends picking a statue's nose!
BAD ASSES! Smoking (bubblegum) cigarettes from the candy store at an outlet in Gettysburg.

The famous squirrels in D.C. This one followed us a whole block!

Drinkin tea in the hotel room! YUM! (Like my camera case?)

Butterfly garden! (No butterflies that day...)

Nemo in the natural history museum!

Too. Hot. to. see. any. more. memorials.

All memorial'd out.

Passed this beauty on the way back out from DC.

We named him Fred...

The food was either suckish, or when it was good it was uber-expensive. At the capitol, me and my hungry self went to the salad bar and piled it with lettuce, arty hearts, carrots, pineapple, and other veggies.
$16.50!! Frick.
But it was well worth it, hey maybe not.

I went to the Native American museum for lunch one day, and got yummy food. There was a squash dish, some native kind. I also got a bit of salad, arugula and something. That came to about $12, plus a diet coke! Frick again. And did I mention the portion sizes were barely appetizers? Yeah.

Well we went to this thing called Medieval Times and tournament. I disapprove! It was a little outside of D.C, and it was in a shopping mall type thing. Pretty much a "show" of "jousting" and strange men wearing skin tight clothes and long hair. Oh and the best part? They whipped the horses. Right freaking there, in front of me. I felt bad even being there, more less eating their gosh darn food. But the food was fine, I probably only liked it cuz I was huungwy. The pita chips were stale, like REALLY stale. But the hummus and roasted veggies, and stuffed mushroom were good. But maybe I couldn't tell...

Pretty much summed up my whole experience there.

Anyways that place is not a good environment for a vegan.

There was a dinner the day before father's day that was at my cottage. Unfortunately I couldn't make it, but had a dish to share. I invented wheat berry black bean salad!! YUM! I had soaked and cooked black beans the week before, then froze them.
2 cups black beans (cooked)

3 cups wheat berries (cooked)

Juice from 1/2 lime

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp each: cumin, Mexican oregano, crushed red pepper

1 tsp black pepper

3 T olive oil

corn from 1 husk grilled corn

1 1/2 cups cilantro, chopped finely

1/4 cup mint, chopped finely

1/4 cup salsa

1 tsp Valencia sauce

Combine all the ingredients and serve chilled. Easy enough?

Let's just resolve that I'm NEVER freezing a glass jar again.

Ever.
But I heard rumors that my sister and niece loved this salad. And so did I, DUH.

I also have exciting news! I will be cooking at Cafe Selma. It is basically a volunteer breakfast thing that promotes local, organic ingredients. It is held every Friday morning at someones house, and there are different things on the menu each time. You can just sign up to cook, and it's so cool because the people are eating in the kitchen around you. I'm scared to cook for a crowd-never done it! But I'm very excited.
So what am I making?
VwaV sunny blueberry corn muffins! !!!!!!!!!!!! Plus tempeh bacon !!!
Nervous but excited! I'll let you know how that goes on Friday. Wish me luck!

I hope to be blogging a lot more now that I have a camera, my project for this summer is to cook my way through everything in all my vegan cookbooks...should I be intimidated?